Feral, 2P -- While Berserk is active, Savage Defense absorbs are 100% larger, and your Blood in the Water talent now causes Ferocious Bite to refresh the duration of your Rip on targets with 60% or less health.Feral, 4P -- Frenzied Regeneration also affects all raid and party members, and your Stampede talent now grants two charges after using Feral Charge (Cat).

I'm not thrilled though...we already weave in sporadic FBs anyways above 35%, so we'll just end up FBing more I suppose when they hit 60% HP, probably a marginal DPS increase at best. 4p, what a waste as I see it, (sarcasm) woohoo (/sarcasm) we get an extra Ravage when we use our sporadically-used FC talent...and though I know most people take those talents anyways (BitW and Stampede), to me it's a partial insult that they're now saying either you take them or you're screwed...I'm wondering if depending on the stats, if 2p and offsets are gonna be more viable over a 4p.

If you're a Bear, it's interesting they turn Berserk into a CD button now, guess it helps. Having Frenzied Regen on all party members is kinda...different...as well from a raid view (though I'm not really sure how it helps the tank itself more); warriors will probably be pissed if it's unglyphed if they're DPS and losing valuable rage to health regen hey might not need. Unglyphed, it's what, basically the one warrior shout now, and glyphed (assuming the glyphed form transfers to party members) could make it an interesting CD for Healers to call for during big damage phases.

Overall...meh...I was secretly planning on using the rogue for 4.3 anyways, legendaries and much slicker tier bonuses now. And I'm the only one in my 10man who has a raid geared rogue anyways, without having to sub out someone

Cat 2t13 makes the rotation far more simpler. With higher ilevel we'll have more haste, and normally would need to be much more diligent in watching timers to see if we can squeeze in an FB, or run the danger of capping out on energy and wasting CPs shredding at 5CP. Now once you hit 60% hp it becomes a no brainer - keep rake up, keep SR up, shred to 5 and FB. Depending on the math, we may even end up shredding only to 4 or 5 to prevent wasting CPs.

Tinderhoof wrote:I have a few ideas about how this Tier is going to shake down based on these set bonuses. I need a little time to put together my thoughts, but I really wouldn't be all that down about them.

Also Red, I believe the 2p bonus only applies during Berserk not all the time. Otherwise ya it would be OP.

It's kinda interesting, as the comma in their post really makes it vague along with the "and"; personally as I read it, since it has the comma before "and", to me they're linked sentences since the comma serves as a pause or break in reading, so that any FB at 60% and lower will refresh Rip. If it lacked the comma though, then to me it's one sentence, and you would have to be in Berserk to gain the effect.

Hrm. I'm reading that 2pc as "Savage Defense absorbs are 100% larger [While Berserk is active], and your Blood in the Water talent now causes Ferocious Bite to refresh the duration of your Rip on targets with 60% or less health.

Guess whoever does the final check on Blizz's communications failed grammar in school.

Dangling modifiers aside, I can't imagine it would be only during berserk, as that would make the bonus almost entirely useless. If we have 2t13, we won't have 4t12, so berserk will only last 25s - which is almost covered by one rip.

Tinderhoof wrote:Also Red, I believe the 2p bonus only applies during Berserk not all the time. Otherwise ya it would be OP.

Actually, it wouldn't be that OP. For the last 2 tiers we have had a 10% Bonus on abilities, Rake in T11, Shred/Mangle in T12, and Blood in the Water is a ~10% DPS increase while it is active. Both were usually 20-30% of our DPS for the entire fight, so it was a 2-3% increase in our DPS. This bonus will only be active for 60% of the fight, depending on the way fights work in T13, so it will double the DPS we gain by our 2PC, but its not really OP. Plus the 4 PC is rather lack-luster, IMHO, so no harm done.

T13 2set is awesome. No longer do we have to worry about having 5 cp up to refresh Rip, now we can just FB away whenever it's about to run out. Another neat thing is you can actually calculate the bonus' effect with Mew by just moving the BITW slider. Assuming a t12 2set with t13 2set combo, On my gear which is ilvl 376(unticking 4set ofcourse), adding the 4set bonus equals approximately 650 dps. I assume it scales with gear but I don't know by how much.

I'm showing similar gains in Mew to Searinox just playing with the BITW time slider (though I forgot to uncheck the t12 4set, stupid mistake). Even with that, it was a 560 dps gain or so over a lower BITW time. What worried me was that the sim was showing 1k+ dps from the t12 2set, though that may be inflated some by higher berserk uptime.

Quick results (remembered to uncheck t12 4set this time, going with my current stats- character is the same as forum name on Cenarius)

60% BITW uptime: 318772t12 dps: 958

normal BITW uptime- 25% (with 4t12): 319942t12 dps: 1069

normal BITW uptime, no 4t12: 312212t12 dps: 1002

Stats on 2pc might(could?) make up for the loss from 4t12 (maybe not in full heroic t12? Not sure, have to see what kind of agi you'd lose)- without stat gain though, 4pt12 is higher (not too surprising, 4set vs. 2set).

About a 656 dps gain by just upping the BITW uptime (taking 60% uptime no t12 4pc and subtracting normal uptime no 4t12). Taking the DPS from fiery claws in the Mew reports though makes it seem a bit weak for an end tier bonus, even just a 2set. It could be that there's something strange with my sim settings, I'm curious if anyone else can replicate this kinda of result or, hopefully, show me that this is completely wrong and that the bonus is much better than it seems in my sims.

Obviously, this isn't taking into account any sort of rotational changes that might result from lower cp bites(if we use them) or any of that. It also isn't taking into account the stat differences on the gear, though I'm not well enough versed in the math to guess what difference that'd make.

2t12 is worth ~3% DPS, so being worth 1k out of 30k is perfectly reasonable.

Also getting similar results, with 4t12 > 2t13/2t12. This is actually what I expected, given that LFR looks like it will drop 391 gear. If 2t13/2t12 was better than 4t12, it would essentially force all high end ferals to continuously farm LFR for 391 t13 pieces. I suspect normal t13 will be ilevel 404, and thus the additional stats would make up for losing 4t12.

As for 4cFB, I'm showing 5cFB at above 1,000DPE, and shred at below 700DPE. Would need to muddle in the script and make the actual changes, but the signs are there that it may be worthwhile to bite at 4 or 5 cps.

redline wrote:2t12 is worth ~3% DPS, so being worth 1k out of 30k is perfectly reasonable.

Also getting similar results, with 4t12 > 2t13/2t12. This is actually what I expected, given that LFR looks like it will drop 391 gear. If 2t13/2t12 was better than 4t12, it would essentially force all high end ferals to continuously farm LFR for 391 t13 pieces. I suspect normal t13 will be ilevel 404, and thus the additional stats would make up for losing 4t12.

As for 4cFB, I'm showing 5cFB at above 1,000DPE, and shred at below 700DPE. Would need to muddle in the script and make the actual changes, but the signs are there that it may be worthwhile to bite at 4 or 5 cps.

Naively comparing DPE for a finisher vs a CP generator is flawed to begin with, since it affects SR (and despite Blood in the Water, Rip though the latter is an edge case. It's more relevant if people opt to not cap hit/exp or are attacking from the front for obvious reasons.).

Things have changed since the Blood in the Water script behavior was last adjusted but if < 5 cp Ferocious Bite is worth using with the set bonus (apart from if you would lose Rip without it) that would be irrespective of getting a new set bonus or not. I strongly doubt it though since the CP generation required to consistently generate 5 cps for Ferocious Bite and maintain SR isn't particularly high.

Playing with Yawning's new version of Mew. Using an ilvl 378 toon and simply changing the set bonuses without adjusting for the stat increases, I tried three scenarios: No in-combat feral charge (so you only do it at the start of the fight), in combat feral charges on cooldown with a 3 second travel time and in-combat feral charges with a 2 second travel time.

So, by the numbers, the 2 piece set bonus is OK (not quite as good as the T12 4 piece). The 4 piece is crap unless you are on a fight where you can run out and FC within a 2 second window on cooldown. In Firelands, I can't think of a single fight where you can afford to run out on every FC cooldown, and adding that to our rotation to be competitive is stupid.

I like the idea that they are giving bears a raid cooldown, but tying it to a set bonus is flawed since the existing raid-wide tank cooldowns are not gear dependent.

You can try selectively (I added calls, see the change log) doing things with 4T13 to try to push the numbers up but I doubt there's much you can do.

Leafkiller wrote:So, by the numbers, the 2 piece set bonus is OK (not quite as good as the T12 4 piece). The 4 piece is crap unless you are on a fight where you can run out and FC within a 2 second window on cooldown. In Firelands, I can't think of a single fight where you can afford to run out on every FC cooldown, and adding that to our rotation to be competitive is stupid.

I'm reasonably sure that 2T12 out scales 4T13 with ilevel increases on gear as well since 2T12 scales really well. It would be interesting now that there's a reasonable number of data points to project weapon DPS and Agi to see approximately how hard Ravage and Shred will hit respectively as well, but it may be prudent just to wait till the PTR. (A closed form approximation would be sufficient, since the relevant trends should be trivial to pick out.)

Leafkiller wrote:I like the idea that they are giving bears a raid cooldown, but tying it to a set bonus is flawed since the existing raid-wide tank cooldowns are not gear dependent.

Being stuck in bear form auto attacking for the duration of Frenzied Regeneration more than likely will kill any gains over 2T12+2T13, even if you were able to squeeze in inhumanly good Stampede/Ravage use, despite the ilevel difference (since DPS dead time at random totally tanks DPS hard). I briefly thought about adding this to the model since I do know how to derive all the necessary bear values, but it's annoying so I'm not going to do it.

Being shoehorned into using a terrible set bonus and utterly ridiculous priority system so that you can "benefit the raid" is dumb. While raid utility is never a bad thing, the way this was implemented is 2nd to 4T11 on the "how not to do it scale" for a DPS centric raid role. Don't get me wrong, being useful to the raid is cool, but the primary draw/goal of playing a DPS role is well...... to do good DPS. WoW has moved on past the "utility roles" (Think vanilla Paladins with 5 min buffs) being a valid reason for assigning a class/spec a raid slot.

I'll probably push a experimental build once I add support for the warrior prot bonuses (Yes, Mew supports that as well now, since someone asked nicely) so people can play with things.

Leafkiller wrote:I like the idea that they are giving bears a raid cooldown, but tying it to a set bonus is flawed since the existing raid-wide tank cooldowns are not gear dependent.

Being stuck in bear form auto attacking for the duration of Frenzied Regeneration more than likely will kill any gains over 2T12+2T13, even if you were able to squeeze in inhumanly good Stampede/Ravage use, despite the ilevel difference (since DPS dead time at random totally tanks DPS hard).

I was only thinking of the 4 piece bear set bonus for times I was tanking and not for swapping out of cat form for 20 seconds. I wonder how this will compare to tranquility.

Looking at the set bonuses for all classes, it's clear that Blizzard wanted to try out some interesting raid utility for tanks. The fact that cats can switch forms in the middle of the fight and pop those tanking cooldowns is just a side affect of the strange role that ferals have; a fun trick to use for some fights, but not to use on a regular basis in raid boss fights.

One way to look at the set bonuses overall, is that Blizzard appears to be trying out capabilities that they may end up "baking in" to certain classes next expansion. They've done this with tier set bonuses before; with the tanking system getting a substantial overhaul for the expansion, it's certainly the right time to think about what sort of raid utility they want tanks to provide, beyond their own survivability.

Cuer wrote:Looking at the set bonuses for all classes, it's clear that Blizzard wanted to try out some interesting raid utility for tanks. The fact that cats can switch forms in the middle of the fight and pop those tanking cooldowns is just a side affect of the strange role that ferals have; a fun trick to use for some fights, but not to use on a regular basis in raid boss fights.

Whatever their intent is, you are being extremely naive if you don't think that people will abuse this capability every opportunity possible. Naturally I am still biased toward a "get the boss dead at any cost" progression mindset. People in more "casual" settings may not do so, but they would be gimping themselves.

I personally dislike the thought of having to shift to bear mid-fight just to give frenzied regen to everyone...just seems weird and counter-intuitive. But yeah, do what it takes...even if it sucks...sucks even more if you have to glyph it.

So, does it look like 2pT12 (heroic) + 2p T13 will likely be the way to go, assuming most of the fights are likely to be as unfriendly to FC on CD anyways? I mean, just reading through some of the basic boss descriptions for Dragon Soul (which is a rather lame name for a raid imo), Warlord Zon'ozz and Yor'sahj the Unsleeping (first 2 bosses at ground level of Wyrmrest) look like they should be able to be FC'd, both being centered on the ground (with Yor'sahj sounding like he spawns lots of adds). No pics of Hagara the Binder (3rd), but the bit description makes it sound like she is on the land, so maybe?

Ultraxion (4th) is clearly stated to be too big to land on the Wyrmrest platform, so he'll likely be a flying boss, hence no FC. Warmaster Blackhorn (5th) looks like an aerial battle from the description and screen shot (this is the one where you'll probably be going to the Nexus to get the focusing iris), so again likely no FC. Then Deathwing himself...for the first encounter on his back (6th), P1 sounds like a no-go since you're chasing him on an airship to jump onto his back, unless the flying mobs chasing you land on the airship itself. For P2 (actually on his back) I'm more than willing to bet that since you're walking on likely uneven plating (given he's twisting and turning and likely arching his back to buck you off), you might be able to get some sporadic FCs at adds that apparently bleed out of him, but probably not much else. Finally for the last boss (Deathwing in maelstrom. 7th)...depends. If the rumors of rock hopping are true, FC will be near useless due to LoS issues and such going from rock to rock, then it depends on if the rocks themselves are enough for you to get 8 yards out to FC even then.

Granted, we don't know anything about how the fights will go yet, but conceptually, having ~half to most of the bosses likely not allowing you to FC on CD really makes the 4p a bust in my eyes.

shinryu wrote:So, does it look like 2pT12 (heroic) + 2p T13 will likely be the way to go, assuming most of the fights are likely to be as unfriendly to FC on CD anyways?

Actually, I think the way to go is for us to share our concerns with Blizz about the 4 piece set bonus and suggest that they really don't want us to have to hand onto our T12 gear. I wonder if they read anything other than their own forums...

@ 4T FR: We cant complain that we are given yet a very good raid utility that we can use. I dont understand why giving us a very powerful raid wall is a bad thing. Yes we cant dps, that much, but its a very good tool to use. And we are the only dps class that are able to use the new tank raidwalls since Warrior, Palas and DK need to get tank tier. We perhaps need to look out of the dps box a bit since we are a very powerful hybrid class.

@ 4T Stampede: We cant predict the future so we cant say how this turns out in regards of Dragon Soul. It could be that some bosses is Ragnarish where we cant FC at all. Blizzard need to fix that. However one of the major complains we had in the class review was ramp up time and adds. I think someone actually mentioned to be able to get a stampede when switching to adds. Yes its a long CD but if adds spawn, unless they are on top of you, this is perfect to leap and put out some serious burst DPS. Checking Mew with my current gear i have ravage at 41K. So it is 80K dps on 2 globals and they travel time is not an issue since i need to get to the adds regardless. Also we are getting CP fast as well using Ravage! and since the energy loss is 0 the other major issue we had with adds and energy starving is a taken care of as well. So yes, perhaps its not a very good tank and spank bonus but will it not help us in the areas we complained most about?